


Stuck in Your Head

by Vacillhate



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vacillhate/pseuds/Vacillhate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moirails get stoned, chill the fuck out, and touch each other platonically. The tale, the adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stuck in Your Head

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt found [here](http://homesmut.dreamwidth.org/38671.html?thread=40512015#cmt40512015). I've made a few changes.
> 
> Also warning that there is under-the-influence kissing! There is also a brief reference to unwanted romantic/sexual attention happening to someone who is using drugs. I wasn't sure how to tag that.
> 
> Spoiler there's no smut if my summary brought you here under false pretenses I'm sorry.

You've always thought you'd never try this kind of thing; you prefer having full control of your own faculties, thanks. Soporific substances were for idiots who could afford to lie around their ass all day soaking up their blessed highblood life instead of for serious, sharp trolls who knew they had to fight to make it. It's not that you can't be anti-authoritarian, hell, your entire existence is anti-authoritarian. It's just that, this kind of shit, you knew you were too good for it. Too smart, too in control, too capable.

Except when Meenah offered you a hit off her gold and pink bubble pipe, and the way she asked if you knew how to use it. She wasn't patronizing, not really. Not if you weren't insecure and defensive and impossibly pathetic. But something in you couldn't admit you didn't know more than what you'd seen in movies, and how hard could it be to pretend? You wound up coughing and sputtering and she laughed at you, only a little, only good-naturedly, but sometimes you hate yourself so much you can hardly breathe.

It can't be that hard. Most of those assholes seem to do it, and they're all much stupider than you are. Maybe it's a skill that's taught exclusively on their cushy planet for spoiled wigglers, or maybe you're not even seven and you barely ever left your hive when you had one, and you would have always been a failure at being a normal fucking person no matter what life you'd had.

It probably feels good. You know in movies it makes people blissed out laughing at anything they see. You know it had Meenah laid back, trying to touch you, while you nursed a glass of water and pretended you could totally feel it and you didn't mind her hands on you even though you've never liked being touched because you were tired of being so fucking boring. You are probably too broken to ever really relax, it would probably only exacerbate your most terrible personality traits, but fuck if you don't want to know what it feels like to not be filled up with stress and wound to breaking point.

You stole some of it from one of their chests; you don't know whose and you feel a little guilty, especially because Meenah would have given you some if you'd asked but there was no way you ever could. You wish you could have asked for the paper that you roll into a little tube and then suck on, that seems so much less complicated, but that isn't what you found, so you'll have to make do with an ugly pipe that puts you in mind of something disgusting.

You set it up the way you think you're meant to, you take a huff of it the way it looks like you're supposed to, and then you're coughing, your throat is burning, and then you're suddenly aware of someone behind you. You almost drop it; if it's Kanaya behind you, you will drop it, and then cut your throat with the messiest resulting shard.

You still flush with embarrassment when you see Gamzee there, appearing out of nowhere as suddenly as he always does. But of anyone who could have walked in on you trying to suck on what looks like a deformed purple bulge containing alien soporifics, he's not the worst.

You're still coughing, but you manage to choke out, "Hey." There's nothing really else to say; you'd admonish him for not knocking, but you've told him before he doesn't have to, he's welcome to barge in and stare at you while you sleep and possibly risk stumbling on you jacking off or doing, well, this, if it will keep him from wandering off for weeks at a time without checking in.

You don't really know how he'll react; it occurs to you he might actually be angry. He's rambled on about his hatred of the slime he used to shove down his gullet, the damage it caused, the holes and hurts. Maybe it's shitty and insensitive of you to even consider trying something so close to your moirail's demons. But he cracks a fanged grin, and, oh, you flush all over again when you realize he's laughing at you.

"Karkat, brother, what do you think you're doing?"

You immediately feel incredibly stupid, you don't know why you thought you could try something like this. Even to your dumb as a bag of rocks moirail, you look like a sad little grub trying too hard. "Nothing," you snap, putting the stupid pipe down behind the horn pile. "None of your business."

You know being petulant isn't going to make you look any better, but it does let you look at the ground until he stops laughing at you and instead comes over to sit, draping an arm around your shoulders and folding up his long legs in front of you. You go tense immediately at the contact like you always do, and like you always hate yourself for, because you don't like being touched but he's your moirail and you like being touched by him. You take a deep breath and try to relax into it.

"No need for that noise," he says, generously ignoring your moment of hesitation. "Just didn't expect you'd be interested in all that."

"I'm not," you say immediately, and it's true. You have no interest in filing your sponge down with any chemical you can shove down your gape hole. "I just wanted to try it. I don't see why it has to be a big deal."

"Nah, it ain't, it ain't. Couldn't have my brother wreck his sweet skull with no disgusting pan rot. But this shit couldn't hurt a grub." He smiles to himself, still amused, but it embarrasses you a little less. "You won't get nowhere the way you're huffing and puffing on that thing, though. Let me show you, little brother, and then I'll watch and make sure no harm comes."

You pick up the device and you hand it over to him. You can certainly stand to be shown how to do it, although you don't need to be watched over and you tell him so. "I thought it couldn't hurt a grub. I don't need you to lusus me."

You watch the way he absently packs in the sort of disgusting green substance, unhooking his arm from you to do so. "Only the same as you done for me, back then when I all kicked nastier shit down the stairs. You know what I mean?"

You do, you remember because he'd stopped responding to your messages and you'd had to track him down and found him too fucked up to so much as turn on a computer, let alone navigate game mechanics. You had to forcibly get his shit right so he wouldn't die and doom all of you. It pissed you off at the time, but looking back, you know it was hard for him, he'd lost his lusus thanks to you and the idiotic thing had been an even more worthless sprite than it was as a guardian. It was hard for him and you'd never even tried to understand why he used so much sopor, how he didn't know how to cope without it. It makes your pusher clench to think about how he was, helpless and genuinely sweet, nothing like the corpse-hoarding disaster of a troll he became. But it makes you feel disloyal to think of him back then, because you love him now, too. And besides, it's your fault for failing him for so long that he fell apart on you.

"Yeah, I remember," you say. "I'm not going to fall down on my ass and lose all control of motor functions from this shit, though, it's not relevant."

He's already moved on from the thought, you think, lighting the little combustion device and taking a hit from the pipe. You watch how he does it, and how he holds his breath before letting out a long exhale of smoke. "You got to hold onto it, right here." His long finger taps you low on your sternum, and then he holds the pipe out for you and flicks on the combustion device.

You take a hit from it the way he did, so it bubbles up from inside the pipe, and you hold onto the breath. It's hot enough to hurt going down and it scratches your throat, but you hold onto it and let it burn below your ribs until you can't anymore. You let go with a cough, but you can still feel it hot in your lungs. "Fuck," you sputter, it feels like shit and you aren't sure why he doesn't turn into a hacking mess like you do.

He laughs, more affectionate than teasing. "That's the way, you're all right." He takes another hit of it; you try to decide if you feel anything. You just feel normal; maybe this is all there is? Maybe it doesn't work on you, maybe you're wound too tight even for this. You reach out for it again, which he seems to find funny, and you let him light it for you even though it's not as though you couldn't figure out how to use a combustion device. You cough a little less, maybe, but then, no you don't, your throat feels like something is clawing to get out.

His body is a solid mass next to you, and you're only a little self-conscious to have to lean on him and swallow until it starts to feel normal. You tune out what he's doing or whether he's still getting shitfaced. It still isn't affecting you, so you reach out vaguely for the pipe again. He doesn't give it to you.

"That's enough for you, bro," he says, and he's gentle about it, but it still annoys you. He's done it more times than you, you think, even though you're not sure.

"It's not working," you mumble, and he laughs again, and you're tired of being laughed at, so you say so. "Stop fucking laughing at me," you say, "you're the embarrassment here," and he only laughs more.

"It's working, brother, or else what're you up to there?" and you don't get it until you realize you're nuzzling your head into his neck like a purrbeast, and you hadn't even noticed. It's just that your skin feels like it's buzzing and you want to move, but you're tired and he's comfortable, and half your body weight is resting on top of him. It startles you a little, when normally you have to ease into anything this tactile, and usually only after a particularly intense jam.

"Shit," you say, about nothing in particular. You don't know if you like this or not. You feel confused and details about what's happening keep occurring to you. He's put the pipe down, since it's sitting right there on the ground in focus, and you didn't even notice him do that or that he's draped his arm around you again or that you're half-lying on him. You suddenly realize more time has passed than you were aware of. You feel out of your depth, everything is slightly off like you're looking at it underwater.

"Shoosh," he says, and his voice rumbles in his chest before it comes out of his mouth. "I got you."

"It's fine," you say, trying to articulate you don't need caring for, but you sort of do. You think about what a disaster he could be on sopor, but he could also function on it, and that was stronger than this stuff. The thought of having to have a conversation on Trollian or use any of the equipment in the culinary block makes your head spin a little. It's sort of amazing he got by so well, even if you know he's just more used to it.

You're abruptly glad he's here, you're glad you did this with him instead of by yourself, or with Meenah. You never really stop worrying, about what's happening around you, about what you're doing, about whether you're prepared for what might happen. To concentrate through this, to try to handle the problems you can imagine or keep anything you don't want to happen from happening in this haze, would just make you feel sick. But Gamzee, if you can't trust Gamzee you can't trust anyone. He cares about you enough not to hurt anyone else, he wouldn't let hurt happen to you, he won't let you get in over your head. You stop trying to hang on to the thread of thought your worries are strung with. You just think about what he smells like, smoke and soporifics and laundry soap because you just washed his shirt for him, and how cool his skin feels on your cheek. It feels good to touch him and be close to him, it's refreshing to feel his skin.

You stretch to brush your forehead on his cheek and wind up unbalanced, stretched on top of him; he circles his arms around your waist and pulls you so you're straddling his hips, lying flush against his chest, so you can push your forehead to his. His skin is so cold against yours and it's perfect, he's perfect, and abruptly your insecurities slam into you like a fist to your gut. You're acting stupid, you're embarrassing yourself being all over him, you are so awkward and you can't do any of this right and your skin must feel burning hot to him and it can't be as good. This is why you can't do this, you can never do this, it makes tears prick the back of your eyes because you don't mean to be so unpleasant and unloveable but you just are. 

"Karkat," he says into the side of your face, and you're suddenly aware of his hand stroking your hair, how intensely he's watching you, and he says it like he wants you there. There's a concerned question in his gaze and comfort in the cautious way he pets you.

"I'm fine," you say, you aren't sure why.

"Feels good?" he asks, still running his fingers through your hair, tracing patterns on your scalp. You nod and blink back tears, hide your face in his messy tangles. You know your doubts are stupid, but you just want him to feel good, too. You want to be good enough. "Other shit we could do," he continues. "You know? Could watch one of your films. That one where the fucker gets all nasty with his girl's spade pail, that shit's motherfucking funny."

You shake your head quickly enough to surprise you, and not just because you're tired of him laughing at all the wrong parts of your movies. "No, I don't…" Your tongue is thick and you can't find the words to explain yourself. You try to swallow down your worries. "Too warm?"

"Never," he says, his tone softer, "never ever." He can read your worries, you know he can. The casual way you try to ask it isn't fooling him for a second. "You're just right, you're only what _belongs_." He shakes his head and lifts his gaze so you can't avoid meeting his eyes. The intensity of his expression scares you, only a little, but it makes your blood pump pound. "Karkat," he says, "Brother, do you recall how you found me in my falsified unholy carnival land, with my veins running green with poison and my sponge _leaking out of my clots_?"

You stroke his face on instinct, the unsteady tone of his voice bringing it out in you. "You already asked that," you say, you think that's true. You think you remember him saying something like that before.

"But do you have the knowing of it," he asks, staring through you like your skin is invisible, "you can't have the knowing, how you saw the hollowed out husk of a motherfucker, a motherfucker what is nothing but empty sludge inside, and you filled him up with the pinkest of pale affections, and then you _tore out his bloodpusher beating from inside him_ and left him like that?"

You don't understand what he's talking about at all, but you feel his hurt and regret like it's knife sharp. "I'm sorry," you say helplessly.

His fierceness softens at that, still intense but not frightening. "Shhh," he says, "shoosh, it ain't my intention to get you apologizing for what you never did wrong. You saved me, you put a sad husk of a motherfucker back together again and again, as many times as it took before the pieces of him knew how to work right. But do you know, have you ever known, what it feels like to _want_ someone? To have the want in you so bad you could just lay down and die for it."

You understand what he's getting at now, you think. "I want you," you say, and you kiss his cool forehead. "It took me too long, but I fucking swear I do."

His eyes close into your touch. You regard him with concern, but his face is peaceful, he practically melts into you. "Have me. And I have you, and there's no room for sad regrets in that fact, no place for nothing but me and you, but if you could come to know the way I felt for you. If you could have that knowing, all them ugly thoughts in your pan how you could be anything I didn't want would simply _choke out and die_. I'll show you whatever love I have but you could never come to know _the depths of it_."

What he's saying embarrasses you and makes you want to shake him until he sees he's not the first troll in history to fill his pale quadrant, there's nothing unrequited about his feelings. Instead you kiss him, on the mouth this time, with his chin cupped between your hands and so tenderly it makes your heart flutter, like you're the tragic palestruck love interest of a thousand films expressing your conciliatory devotion. Only he kisses you back, which never happens in your movies, and you aren't sure what to make of it. You tense immediately, reflexively, when you feel his lips moving back against yours, but he notices and stops too, and you decide it's all right, this is all right, it feels good to both of you, and there's no reason not to. You kiss him and it's hesitant and gentle as a first kiss would be if your first kiss hadn't involved violent accidental bumping of fangs and noses and then Terezi shoving her tongue down your throat.

He does nothing like that, there's no noses or tongues at all and he's going slow enough to avoid nipping you with his fangs, there's nothing but the careful but insistent pressure of his lips and his hands caressing you like he wants to touch every inch of you but can't do it all at once. You let your hands fall to rest on the back of his neck and just let go of yourself for a little while, until you're breathless and seeing diamonds and you have to draw back. He watches you with lazy, heavy-lidded eyes, his lips bruised purple and his paint smudged, but he lets you pull away without protest.

"Gamzee," you say. "How fucked up are you right now?"

Abruptly he's laughing, soft soundless huffs of laughter that he moves to muffle in your hair. "Fucked, best brother, very fucked." You laugh, too, into the patch of skin where his neck meets his shoulder. It's funny because you're happy and comfortable and you should probably be embarrassed, but you aren't.

"Shit, me too," you say, and it's funny all over again.

"You're smiling, bro," he informs you while you continue giggling into his shoulder. "Laughing, too. Does me good to see."

"Mmm," you answer, and nuzzle yourself in comfortable against him. "Feel good. Love you."

"Love you too," he says, "pale as can be." You sigh as he strokes your hair. You can feel every follicle shift and smooth under his touch, and even though you feel like you're drifting, you're just so aware of him. You couldn't be closer to him without both melting into some kind of grotesque fused gelatinous mass, you know because you're trying a little but the solidity of your bodies is getting in the way. But you can hear his pulse, and the rise and fall of his breath, and you can smell him and feel him all around you. And you can hear him, mostly as a rumble against you, when he speaks, but you've stopped paying attention to the words because the sensations are much better, and the sensation is one of being absolutely cared for.

You don't know how long you cuddle before you fall asleep, but it's long enough to become just sober enough to know how sober you aren't. It's also long enough for your doubts to start circling again, about whether this was a good idea, whether you acted stupid, whether you're going to feel awkward later about kissing him. But you still feel good, not floating dizzily anymore, just relaxed, like you let go of an enormous weight and found it to be not so heavy when you came back to it. You decide you have time to stay like this a little longer, so you close your eyes and you smile.


End file.
